Sunday, June 22, 2014

Head in the clouds got no weight on my shoulders
I should be wiser and realize that I've got one less problem without ya
I've recently come to terms with my single-ness. Less sad and cynical. More carefree and optimistic. I used to be so envious of all my friends who were in relationships. It always seemed like being loved and being IN love was the end-all-be-all in life. I romanticized love and marriage to the point that I was actually making myself quite miserable sulking all the time about the lack of romance in my own life. Don't get me wrong it still is a very important aspect and I do want those things, but I'm not going to let that be the one singular thing that I focus on. I'll be 21 next month and let's face it, there are a million and one more important things that I should be concentrating on: bills, my health, career, hobbies, traveling, my own happiness in general. And with all the stressors in my life (again: career, bills, blahblahblah) do I really wanna add a relationship to the mix? NOPE.

To quote my girl Clem from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, "I'm just a messed-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours." Of course I'm paraphrasing but the point is clear. I need to be happy. I need to take care of myself. I need to just do my own thing. Not necessarily for anyone else, but for the simple fact that I need to be happy. If a guy comes along for the ride, cool. But I'm not going to add "find a mate" to my to-do list anytime soon. Ain't nobody got time fo dat. It's not like my biological clock is ticking.
Plus there's so many pros to being a free woman!20 Perks of Being Single in Your 20s
1. You can travel anywhere without having to feel guilty about not bringing your partner.
2. You don’t have to explain why you came home late — even if the excuse is Taco Bell.
3. You don’t have to hide hanging out with other people from the opposite sex — especially coworkers.
4. You can save more money on literally everything.
5. You don’t feel obligated to share individual items, such as burritos.
6. You can keep your house as clean or as messy as you desire without being judged.
7. You can go out and exchange numbers with anyone, anytime and anywhere.
8. You don’t need to befriend another set of weird dancing family members — your own set is plenty.
9. You don’t have to engage in awkward conversations with your partner’s annoying and obnoxious friends.
10. You need not participate in checkpoint conversations throughout the day.
11. You can storm out of the room and literally leave town without owing an explanation.
12. You can pick up weird new hobbies, such as fencing, without being judged.
13. At least physically, you won’t let yourself go because you’ll be consistently working against “the competition.”
14. You can focus on your career and maybe even move to new cities or countries to pursue a better job.
15. You can spend as much time as you want with your friends without feeling guilty.
16. You can have adventures with new people without having to explain the story about how you met.
17. You can buy cool gifts for yourself instead of pretending to “want” to buy something for your partner.
18. You don’t have to share party favors and your six-pack will remain in the fridge, untouched, after the bar.
19. You don’t have to deal with weird introductions to your family or your mother’s judging glare.
20. You don’t have to be anybody beside yourself and you are free to figure out who that is, however and whenever you want. (list from elitedaily.com author Lydia Taffera)

My time and my decisions are my own. No plans! No obligations! I can spend thins time growing closer to my friends and family. I can spend my time doing everything I ever wanted to do for myself or I can do nothing at all. That's not to say that you cannot make your own decisions and have your freedom while in a relationship, you absolutely can! But there are certain obligations you have to your partner and vice versa. And while I'm sure being with someone is wonderful, there's nothing quite like being a free woman.

I really love shift dresses. Lately I've been drooling over old fashion ads and random pictures from the 60s. I picked up this little pattern last November and made the dress the same day. But for whatever reason (I don't know what I did wrong???) the neckline was gaping by like 3 1/2 inches. I had no idea how to fix it! I couldn't re-cut the fabric or start over because I had used a thrifted bedsheet. After a couple days and a few headaches I put it in my project graveyard and resolved to come back to it another time. Well it's been long enough (over 6 months!) and I decided to make a sort of pleat in the center. I folded the center outward about an inch and sewed across the top stitching. At that point it looked a little lacking. I loved the print and the scalloped hem but it still needed something. After taking a nap because I was still frustrated (I always say napping is like the 'reset' button for my brain), I then added blue and white buttons across the neckline. They were perfect! Complimented the dress perfectly and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

I realize now after taking pictures for this post that I've gotten a lot darker these last few months haha! Anywaaaaay, ModCloth is the bomb. Their prices however are not. I saw this dress first on the lovely Kate from Scathingly Brilliant in an outfit post of hers and I went bananas! (ba doom tshhhh) I have a million fit 'n flare dresses and I'm really starting to like shorter a-lines and shift dresses so I decided to go with that instead. The original dress has much smaller more spaced out fruit... but I'm pretty over the top when it comes to prints so naturally I went and found the biggest most obnoxious fruit print I could find!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I don't know whyyyyy my arm looks so ridiculously long in that one picture! But I promise I'm perfectly proportioned (well, maybe not perfectly). ANYWAY, I love my girl Zooey and as I re-watched an old episode of New Girl I drooled over this blue dress. I went with purple instead of blue because I realized I had quite a few blue dresses already. Plus the color scheme of the Russian dolls didn't look so great with blue. Zooey's dress is above the knee but I prefer to have longer skirts just because. Although I may change it because the more I look at it the more naked and awkward the long skirt looks. I dunno, maybe. Also added: puff sleeves! Simply because I love puff sleeves. There's no belt/sash- honestly I was too lazy to make one. But now I'm thinking maybe the length wouldn't look so weird if it had a purple belt. The dress (as with most dresses worn on New Girl) is from ModCloth. It's their Doll in All dress (no longer available!).

Monday, June 9, 2014

I am no stranger to fake hair. I love wigs, extensions, clip-in pieces, whatever.I also recently started to entertain the thought of cosplay. I knew what it was but it always seemed too nerdy for my taste- comics, animes, conventions, etc. Even though there were a few anime shows that I watched when I was little like Inuyasha, Sailor Moon, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Very very rarely would I see any brown skinned girls in that world (is it just me?) but these days I'm seeing it more and more. Now that I'm older I think it's safe to say that the world is a bit more open minded about different forms of expression. It's no secret that there are talented artist everywhere you look on the internet. A few weeks ago I started following Edward a.k.a. nich0lael on Tumblr and I was blown away by how adorable their drawings are! I was even more blown away at the fact that they were brown skinned like me!! This gave me all the push I needed. I always thought that crazy hair colors were for white girls. I mean, any time I saw a black girl with an 'unnatural' hair color she'd get unfairly labeled as 'ghetto' 'hoodrat' 'tacky' you name it. Adversely the women of the pale skin tribe were seen as 'eclectic' 'alternative' 'creative' 'whimsical' and such.

But for whatever reason these few little drawings (I mean really, how cool are they?) gave me so much hope and inspiration. If those magical girls up there can look fab with blue/purple/pink hair then so can I! And besides, I'm a grown woman. If I want to wear a crazy 'unnatural' wig every once in a while then I will regardless of the color of my skin!

New spring pattern! Yay! It's funny because before I actually buy any patterns I always search for reviews so I can see how it looks on a REAL person. But so far I haven't been able to find ANY with this pattern! Oh well, I took a chance and it payed off! It fits like a glove and the only modification I made was bringing up the neckline about an inch and a half. I'm sure no one would really need to do that unless you're flat-chested like me haha! It sat waaaay to low on my chest. What stuck out at weird for me is that the pattern calls for interfacing on the bodice, I've never needed to do that unless there was a button placket or something. But you only need to use lightweight fusible interfacing, so it doesn't really complicate anything.

As you can see I've left mine strapless. Normally I would stay away from strapless things because I feel naked without some sort of strap (even spaghetti straps!). I like the self-made binding with matching straps from the pattern but I decided to go another route. I have this ruffle trim that I'm experimenting with. Not sure how I want to make it into straps but when I do I'll be sure to post an update!

Now for the inspiration:
If you follow me on Pinterest you might have seen my Aprons board (Yes I love aprons so much I dedicated a whole board to them). And as I was browsing through it I came across this little gem...

Nice right? It's from a little etsy shop Boojiboo specializing in adorable aprons and I seriously can't get enough. It just so happened that we had a similar fabric (on clearance holla!) at my fabric store! So naturally I wanted to make it into a full dress. I didn't go with polka dots because I actually hate them, BUT you gotta admit that I got pretty darn close with this dress!

Friday, June 6, 2014

This was a fun little thing to make! I will say however, that making those ruffles were really time consuming. Cutting out each strip, ironing, gathering, lining them up, blah blah blah. And then after all that they somehow ended up really short! Ugh! So the next time I make these I'll be sure to cut the strips an inch or so wider. Since this pattern is for babies the sizing goes by weight and height. I cut out the medium size according to the chart and it ended up being HUGE on my niece. My first go 'round with this pattern was a massive failure. I mean it was kind of cute, but not what I wanted it to be. I'm certain that the next time will be 10x's better because I'll know for sure what not to do. I'm not really feelin that romper or that bonnet-style hat but everybody loved ruffled diaper covers. So I'm keeping this pattern in rotation!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

As of late my blog posts have unintentionally been all sewing all the time. Which is fine, but I want to keep it from being impersonal. As I've mentioned a million times before, I'm more of a stay-at-home kind of person. Although I do have my fair share of adventures. (And by adventures I mean actually leaving the house for any reason other than work.) Last month was both weird and very very good. Lots of productivity. Now because of the way I live my life- work, sew, read, sleep, repeat- I was either too tired or too busy to blog day to day. I thought about doing a huge post on the last day of May talking about everything that happened all month long... but that would be too long and too boring! So instead here's the Cliff Note version. A summary, if you will:

Babysat for the neighbors and got paaaaaaid

Then I had to pay bills and was brooooooke lol

Got a ton of sewing done, lots more to go but still

After having the same little cell phone since grade 11, I finally got a new one!

Quickly became a social media addict

Walking. Lots and lots of walking. About 4-5 miles every other day

Also, spent plenty of time in the sun.

As a result of #7, I got a few shades darker. The blacker the berry...

Got back on track with healthy eating!

Was really sad for about a week

Hung out with a good friend of mine

Got happier, much happier

FINALLY got the internet working upstairs

Spent quality time with mi familia

Spent most of THAT time with my perfect adorable niece

Cut my hair - just a trim, really. And boy has it grown since the last time!

Made progress on unpacking and decorating

Finished two books. Can hardly wait to get started on the next one!!

Got an offer for a side job (holla!)

Cheers to the month of June. We're only 5 days in and I'm already seeing great things!